Politics

Exclusive interview with Kitty Kelley on her Oprah biography

The Daily Caller dailycaller.com
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Famed celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley, known as much for her insights into the private lives of prominent celebrities as for the criticism she attracts, will release on Tuesday what is expected to be a blockbuster look into the life of America’s biggest television personality, Oprah Winfrey. The unofficial book on the billionaire talk show host, Oprah: A Biography (Crown, $30), contains transcripts of thousands of interviews that Winfrey has given, as well as hundreds of interviews that Kelley herself conducted.

Kelly made her name by telling what she says are the sensational — and often uncomfortable — details of the lives of prominent figures from Jackie Kennedy to Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra. In an exclusive interview on her upcoming book appearing first on The Daily Caller, Kelley hinted at some of what awaits readers on Tuesday.

“When I interviewed Vernon Winfrey, I spent an afternoon with him in his barbershop,” Kelley said of her meeting with Oprah’s father, during which she asked him if he supported the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. “Vernon Winfrey said, yes I am, but not for the same reasons Oprah is.”

What might those reasons be, you ask?

“I don’t have a crush on Barack Obama,” Kelley says Vernon told her.

Kelley also opined that Oprah was the reason George W. Bush was elected President in 2000, a notion some might find counter-intuitive, and that Bob Dole told her he was excluded from Winfrey’s show during his 1996 presidential run because he was a Republican.

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